Brooke Kimbrough and Jennifer Gratz share this much in common: They both have been rejected for entrance to the University of Michigan and they both, at different times, have challenged the university’s admissions policies.

From there, the similarities turn into big differences.

Kimbrough, who is black and a senior at University Preparatory Academy in Detroit, says U-M admission policies should be flexible in admitting more minority students even if they don’t quite measure up to the school’s high standards on test scores and grade point averages.

Backed by the civil rights advocacy group By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), the teen went public this week with her fight to be admitted to U-M with a news conference and rally on the Ann Arbor campus.

Gratz, who is white and graduated from Southgate Anderson High School, blames the use of affirmative-action policies for her rejection in 1995 for admission to U-M. She was put on a wait list while minority students with lower GPAs and test scores were admitted.

Since then, Gratz has become the public face of the battle against affirmative action in college admissions in Michigan — first winning a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2003 that threw out the use of racial quotas at U-M and then pushing a 2006 statewide ballot initiative that banned the use of affirmative action in college admissions.

In many ways, the two women personify the opposing arguments in the debate over the use of affirmative action to boost minority enrollment at the state’s leading university.

Kimbrough is trying to get her denial of admission reversed and to draw attention to the decline in the number of black students at the university. She and her supporters think the current minority enrollment numbers — just over 4% of the current student body is black — are way low.

Gratz thinks admissions should be color-blind and the best candidates should get in, no matter what race they are.

They have never met, but that could soon change. On Thursday, Gratz issued a challenge to Kimbrough to publicly debate the use of affirmative action.

“Ms. Kimbrough has publicly demanded that the university should discriminate against other applicants in order to accommodate her demand for preferential treatment based on her skin color,” Gratz said in a news release. “Her very public position contrasts with that of voters who adopted a ban on racial policies in 2006. I hope Ms. Kimbrough is willing to let Michiganders consider her position on this issue in a debate.”

Recognizing Kimbrough’s young age and inexperience, Gratz said Kimbrough could bring a BAMN representative to participate in the debate.

“She put herself out there as a spokesperson for her views,” Gratz told the Free Press. “Obviously, we have very different views. I think there could be a good debate, a good open discussion about the issues.”

BAMN activist Jose Alvarenga said Thursday evening the organization is interested in debating with Gratz, but has yet to talk to Kimbrough about it. He said Kimbrough is busy preparing for a tournament with her school debate team.

“We definitely want to,” Alvarenga said. “Our national chair was supposed to do a debate with Jennifer earlier this year in Lansing and she ended up backing out. We definitely want to do a debate if she doesn’t back out again.”

In a news release, Gratz said a “civil and organized debate” could be sponsored by a news organization.

Gratz told the Free Press that she and Kimbrough are fighting for two different things.

“We are very much polar opposites. She’s more interested in equal outcomes. I’m more interested in equal opportunities. Everyone should be offered the opportunity to compete, without their race — or gender for that matter — helping or hurting them.”

Alvarenga said Kimbrough believes her fight to be admitted to U-M is not just about her.

“It has always been a fight to shine a light on racist discrimination at universities for those who are so demoralized from getting rejection letters to go to their dream schools and being told they’re not good enough,” Alvarenga said. “She’s representing the students who are going through this experience and she definitely feels this is much bigger than herself.”

Kimbrough has a 3.6 GPA and an ACT score of 23. Her debate team is ranked first in Michigan and seventh in the nation and her team just returned from a tournament in Washington, D.C., which they won.

“I fervently believe in black equality,” Kimbrough said in a news release this week. “I believe that our public university system should provide a pathway for opportunity for underrepresented minority communities. I am appealing my application to the University of Michigan not only for myself, but for other black and minority students who deserve the equal opportunity to go to the best public university in the nation.”

U-M officials have said they use a holistic view of applicants in the admissions process.

This year’s freshman class has impressive credentials — an average high school GPA of 3.8, with 21% of them with a 4.0 GPA. Thirty-nine percent of the class had an ACT composite score between 31 and 36. Only 4% of students nationwide achieved those ACT scores, U-M officials said.

Gratz takes issue with any sort of quota system being used to admit students. She says trying to match the student population with the state population raises issues — adding that U-M is 13% Asian, while the state is 2% Asian.

“Should we have a limit on how many Asians we admit?” she asked. “The government should be out of the race issue.”

The issue of race is boiling at U-M. It is the centerpiece of a second Supreme Court case looking at the constitutionality of Michigan’s 2006 ban on the use of race in college admissions. That decision is likely to come this spring.

The school’s Black Student Union has been protesting the lack of minority students on campus and has been meeting all winter with administrators about the issue. The two sides this week announced a series of agreements the student group called small victories.